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The Wages of Trust

…or its lack. Readers of this blog—all half-dozen of you—are well aware that I favor immigration reform (and of a broad, generous variety, but that’s neither here nor there in this post).

There is a serious immigration reform move in the House and Senate, or was until recently. Congressmen Sam Johnson and John Carter (both R, TX) have walked away from the House’s Gang of … which was working a House version of comprehensive immigration reform. Their reasons are telling, and they present the difficulty of achieving serious reform at any time in the near, or middle, future:

After years of hard work and countless meetings, we have reached a tipping point and can no longer continue working on a broad approach to immigration. We want to be clear. The problem is politics. Instead of doing what’s right for America, President Obama time and again has unilaterally disregarded the US Constitution, the letter of the law and bypassed the Congress—the body most representative of the people—in order to advance his political agenda. We will not tolerate it. Laws passed by Congress are not merely suggestions, regardless of the current atmosphere in Washington. Laws are to be respected and followed by all—particularly by the Commander-in-Chief.
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If past actions are the best indicators of future behavior; we know that any measure depending on the president’s enforcement will not be faithfully executed. It would be gravely irresponsible to further empower this administration by granting them additional authority or discretion with a new immigration system. The bottom line is—the American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don’t either.

And there’s the rub. This president cannot be trusted. Worse, though, Obama’s mendacity has reached the point that he’s badly stained the reputation of the office. It will be difficult to pass any comprehensive immigration reform that depends on a President’s execution of it—indeed, this will be true of any serious legislation, since any law enacted depends on a President doing his Constitutional duty to enforce that law.